The present invention relates to a four-group type zoom lens system including a super-telephoto range having a view angle (2.omega.) of smaller than 8.degree. at the telephoto end. More particularly, the present invention relates to a telephoto zoom lens system including a focusing lens unit in the first lens group.
Zoom lenses commonly achieve focusing by moving the front lens group. This method has the advantage of providing for zooming in the substantial absence of defocusing and with only fairly small aberrational changes.
However, in the case of a zoom lens system that has a very long focal distance at the telephoto end and which has a large effective aperture, focusing by moving the front lens group results in certain inconveniences in handling compared with a super-telephoto lens system with a fixed focal length that employs an inner focusing method. That is, such a lens system is heavy, resulting in undue variations in weight balance and necessitating the use of a heavy focusing ring.
Focusing by moving the front-group is also unsuitable for use in an auto focusing (AF) system in which the focusing lens unit is moved with a motor because, first, the movable lens has a large effective aperture and is heavy and, secondly, any accessories mounted on the lens, such as a filter and a hood, must also be moved during focusing.
While many zoom lens systems have been known employing inner focusing method, those which are capable of achieving zooming at a desired length without defocusing are roughly divided into the following two types: (1) a system of the type shown in Unexamined Published Japanese Patent Application No. 14591/1976 which employs simultaneous movement of two or more lens groups with their relative position being varied during zooming; and (2) a system of the type shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 4688/1984 in which a part of the lens group closer to the object is moved during focusing than the lens group that is moved during zooming.
The former type of lens system, which employs a complex lens barrel composition, has the disadvantage that it tends to experience not only deterioration of lens performance due to decentering of adjacent lens groups but also has a high weight of the components that have to be moved for zooming. The latter type of lens system, which has a smaller number of moving lens elements and thus achieves a weight reduction, suffers from the disadvantage that it has great variations in chromatic and spherical aberrations during zooming.